Kim Kardashian’s legal team files motion to dismiss EthereumMax crypto lawsuit
Kim Kardashian’s legal team has filed a motion to set aside a class action lawsuit against the businesswoman and other American celebrities.
Kardashian and a handful of other prominent American social media influencers were served with a class-action lawsuit in January 2022 over allegations that they misled investors through social media promotion of a cryptocurrency called EthereumMax (EMAX).
Kardashian posted Instagram stories promoting the project in June 2021, with the likes of boxing great Floyd Mayweather also implicated in the lawsuit after promoting the Ethereum-based token in the build-up to a celebrity boxing match against YouTuber Logan Paul during the same period.
Fans could buy pay-per-view tickets with the token, which surged after the campaign by Kardashian and other influencers. The value of EthereumMax dropped considerably afterwards, leaving many out of pocket.
The original lawsuit that listed Kardashian, Mayweather and eight others alleged that company executives had colluded with celebrity promoters to make misleading statements about the token and their control over the majority of the tokens. Steve Gentile and Giovanni Perone were listed as co-founders of the project.
Related: Years of sponsorship: Celebrities who embraced crypto in 2021
Kardashian’s legal team argued for dismissal of the class action in court documents reviewed by Cointelegraph, striking back at the 10 claims made against the influencer. A key point was Kardashian’s Instagram stories:
“Crucially, no named plaintiff alleges that they actually viewed any of the Instagram posts prior to purchasing tokens during the relevant time period.”
The filing also argued that the plaintiffs’ claims that influencers were paid in Ether (ETH) to promote EMAX were unfounded, given their lack of evidence that Kardashian had received financial compensation for her Instagram posts.
Kardashian’s legal team also highlighted that there was no evidence that Kardashian ever bought, received or sold the tokens herself. The defendants have jointly filed an omnibus motion to dismiss the combined class actions.
As Kardashian moves to distance himself from his involvement in the EthereumMax debacle, this is just the latest instance in which Mayweather has been involved in a shady campaign for cryptocurrency projects.
The boxer previously escaped a lawsuit after promoting the fake Centra Tech coin offering in 2017 alongside American music producer DJ Khaled. The pair got off the hook after a judge ruled that investors failed to prove they had bought the tokens due to promotional efforts by Mayweather and Khaled.
